Not Hiring Experts Lost Their Case

The Dispatch reports on a lawsuit filed by Newark homeowners against the Maryland and Delaware Railroad Company seeking nearly $1 million in damages allegedly caused by a train derailment in 2004.  The case was dismissed last week when a Circuit Court judge agreed the plaintiffs had not provided expert witnesses to meet their burden of proof in the case.

The co-owners of the house on Basket Switch Rd., Cleo K. Sundstron and Dinna M. Lawrence, filed suit last February in Worcester County Circuit Court asking a judge to intercede on their behalf after three years of frustration with the railroad and insurance companies. The two women prepared and filed the detailed complaint on their own when they could not find an attorney to represent them, which ultimately proved to be their undoing in the case...  The plaintiffs had not presented any expert witnesses to support their claims just weeks before trial was set to begin...

Proving the allegations the train wreck caused the damage to their home likely would have required a panel of experts on derailments, rail inspections, home inspections, contractors etc., but Sundstrom and Lawrence had not identified any expert witnesses before the prescribed deadlines in the case... While their case might have had merit, it was the inability of the plaintiffs to secure expert witnesses that swayed the judge to rule in favor of the defense’s motion for summary judgment last week.